That Kofi Annan's A Nut!

When this buddy of mine won the Nobel Peace Prize this year, I was pretty happy for him. When he asked me to come with him to Oslo, Norway so he could pick up his medal, I was very happy for him. I said, "Are you serious?" And he said , "Hell yeah, I'm serious. It'll be a fuckin' blast!" So I said, "I'm in. Come pick me up." Something you got to understand about this buddy of mine , Kofi (long 'o' sound. Not like the brewed beverage. He doesn't mind if you mispronounce it, but it's pronounced with a long 'o'). This guy knows how to travel. He always flies first class and he always has, like, guards around and people to carry his shit. Which is cool, because he's always traveling and he works hard as a mother. We never get to hang out, which is why this trip was so cool.

Like I was saying, he's always working. He had to work all weekend so we had to leave Sunday night and the awards show was Monday evening. We flew all night from LaGuardia to Oslo, went straight to the hotel and just crashed. I don't even remember what that hotel looked like. We woke up, met some people for breakfast, they drove us around to see the city. It was all from a limo too and I really wanted to get out and stretch my legs and I know Kofi did too. It was cool, though. Everyone was cool and we didn't have to pay for anything.

We finally get to the awards thing and it was pretty sweet. It was at Oslo City Hall. We ate chicken and some green bean thing and had some pretty good white wine, then some people gave some speeches. Everyone was all over Kofi. He's the fucking shit that night and so everyone was super nice to me, too. All he'd say is, "I'd like you to meet my friend Stuart. He's from New York. We play tennis together." And they'd say, "Oh, Kofi talks about you all the time." But man, the story gets better.

After they announce Kofi, he gets up and gives this long ass speech. I mean he was talking forfuckingever. But he finally finished and he sat back down and showed me his rad-ass medal and this plaque and he said, "Hey Stuart, that's not all I won. Look." And he shows me this check for a million fucking dollars! I said, "Holy shit, man. Let's get the fuck out of here and party." And I know he worked so hard for that and he really needed to let off some steam but, man, he almost exploded that night.

First we went to a couple of bars around town. No big deal, but we were pretty drunk by about midnight. And Kofi sees these guys giving this chick a hard time and he goes up to them and starts talking and I'm still on my stool, all glazed over. Then this one guy takes a swing at my buddy (bad idea) and Kofi just starts wailing on the guy and all the guy's friends that jumped in. He was out of control. He actually threw a guy down the bar and he knocked over all the glasses that were on it. Just like a fucking movie, man! And I didn't even think the chick was all that but, you gotta know Kofi. He doesn't put up with anybody giving grief to anyone. He's just like that.

So we leave that place, obviously, and he's all jumped up on adrenaline and decides he wants to go to a strip joint. You should have heard him, man, "Stuart, this town's got the best booger joints outside of Amsterdam and I know just the one." We get there and he takes out his medal and puts it around his neck so everyone can see it. I said, "Dude, we're in Oslo Fucking Norway. Don't you think, like, everybody's got a Nobel prize?" But he was right. These girls were on him like a cheap suit. And one of them, this tall, blonde no plastic anywhere chick pulls him up by his tie and takes him off to some other room.

I don't know how long they were in there but when he came back, he was wearing someone else's pants and a tight, black mesh t-shirt. Luckily he still had his medal. I said, "Dude, you need to watch it. That medal's gonna mean a lot to you when you sober up." And he throws it on the table and starts screaming, "Fuck that medal. That's just a fucking piece of tin. It doesn't mean anything. Country's are still at war. Schmucks in palaces are still trying to take over the world. Half of fucking Africa's still got AIDS! Fuck it man. I'm just a waste. Everything I've done is for shit." And he takes off like he's being chased.

So I was left there, with the medal. A Nobel Peace prize medal. I picked it up. It was heavy and warm and it had residue on it. He was back there taking bumps off it with that stripper. He was trying to forget his pain. I know he was. It didn't seem like just a medal. At least to me. But Kofi's a serious guy. (I know. I play tennis with him). I haven't seen him since then but if anyone out there does see him or works with him or something, tell him that Stuart's got his medal and I don't want it either.